Hellions #18: "The Losing End"

[alliterator]

Comments

[onsokumaru]

Nanny is a horrible person, but as a character, I like her. She was already an entertaining villain before Hellions, and now she is even better.

[lordultimus]

Why couldn't the series continue? *sad face emoji*

[silverhammerman]

Have we found out the deal for all of the recently announced series yet? No hope of Hellions getting a sequel series like Excalibur is with Knights of X?

[donnblake]

I think we're getting a series set in the Hole... (somehow) which seems likely to pick up with Peter and Nanny.

[iamrman]

I was only interested in this series because of Banny and Orphan-Maker, but it actually made me care about Greycrow.

Also, I am sure nothing bad could happen due to Madelyne's resurrection!

[deh_tommy]

Krakoa later decides they actually like the cut of their gib and lets them go free, where the Marauders come by to pick them up and whisk them away no questions asked.

[mastermahan]

But they do tell she needs to change her identity. No one points out that a woman with ant... with egg-shaped armor and big red lips is a bit distinctive.

[silverhammerman]

This was the only way it could have ever ended, and it's great. Of course the Hellions weren't going to come out okay, they were a group of trauma victims and maladjusted weirdos put in the hands of a psychopath, they were basically set up to fail.

Nanny's righteous anger and refusal to kowtow to Krakoan "justice" is great, and the way she specifically threatens Kitty to show that hiding behind ceremony and a set of laws which mostly just reflect whatever the powerful want at any given moment won't protect the Council is so refreshing after years of Hickman's Great Men Doing Bad Things.

Wells took a cast of D-list, two-dimensional losers and turned them into sympathetic characters. If I recall corrctly, Greycrow didn't even have a real name before this series, just going by Scalphunter! Nanny and Orphan-maker became fucked up but lovable characters. I hope that if and when we get to a real reckoning for Krakoa that we see them all again.

[tinygaylaura]

"a set of laws which mostly just reflect whatever the powerful want at any given moment"

You just described every law passed by every country in the entirety of the worlds history

"I hope that if and when we get to a real reckoning for Krakoa that we see them all again."

There is never going to be a "reckoning" for Krakoa

Because Krakoa has done absolutely nothing to deserve a "Reckoning" about.

[silverhammerman]

Lol of course, it's just galling when we're told repeatedly elsewhere that Krakoa is so much better than human societies.

[starwolf_oakley]

If I recall corrctly, Greycrow didn't even have a real name before this series, just going by Scalphunter!

Scalphunter's name Greycrow was revealed in the WEAPON X (2002) series.
WEAPON X #14.

[obsidianwolf]

Are you sure that's when it was revealed I'm pretty sure he was called Greycrow in at least one comic from 1999 Gambit Vol 3 number 8 IIRC.

When Gamibt went to him to find information on Sinister's base.

[dan_ingram]

"He's just a kid!"

"Since getting murdered in another dimension, he was reborn a man. Which, given the compressed timeline, was like three weeks ago. So this is totally cool."

"Totally cool, even though we still kept him with the woman who kidnapped and brainwashed him into being a living weapon. Totally cool, even though we never gave him any other meaningful options or treatment."

"Yup!"

[jgraygaming]

The incredibly predictable climax of this entire saga isn't like Beast sending "hard man to do hard things" and "making decisions no one else can do" without explicit sanction from the Council.

As I recall, the Hellions started off because Sinister was whining about wanting his own team.

And instead of telling him to shove it, the rest of the Council decided the best way to deal with the situation was to give him the mentally ill cast-offs they had no use for so they could "prove their worth".

The rulers of an entire nation of people who are marginalized because they have super powers made an ableist as hell decision to hand over an entire group of people who needed real, honest help to a genocidal psychopath so he could weaponize them.

What did you do to Nanny, Kate?

You and the rest of the Council let this happen.

This isn't just Sinister or Shaw or even Xavier. This is Storm and Nightcrawler and Scott and Jean (who were on the Council at the time) and Kate and Emma "I get a free pass for all the horrible things I did because I feel bad someone killed the kids I was trying to weaponize" Frost. This is on every member of the Council.

They're more culpable for those park ranger deaths than that poor kid there.

Also? THEY JUST SENTENCED A CHILD TO ETERNAL TORMENT!

[sabertoothlotus]

Also? THEY JUST SENTENCED A CHILD TO ETERNAL TORMENT!

Not the first time: they sent Nature Girl and Curse into the pit, too!

[blues32]

Yeah, but those two deserved it. Orphan Maker lashed out in a grief filled rage, unable to cope with Nanny's death while people laughed at it. Nature Girl and Curse acted entirely of their own volition. Plus, the story was just WAY worse. They deserve the Hole.

[dan_ingram]

"Also? THEY JUST SENTENCED A CHILD TO ETERNAL TORMENT!"

Not true at all.

After he was brutally murdered in an alien dimension, he was resurrected as an adult. Even though none of his behavior changed, he was still emotionally bound to Nanny, was never taught to develop as an adult...

[tinygaylaura]

Poor Orphan Maker...but it really was the only option they had given that he murdered two innocent men here.

If it cheers anyone up, later in the issue we do get an ending for Greycrow and Kwannon that's a bit more hopeful and leaves the possibility open that they'll end up together and Greycrow at least is going to try and leave the life of endless violence he's been stuck in behind

Unfortunately we also learn the Council decided to bring Madelyne back to try and make things better for Alex Summers. And we immediately see that, surprising no one, the woman who was trying to feed the world to demons less than half a year ago is still completely out of her fucking mind and planning something evil

[onsokumaru]

Isn't Goblin Queen going to wreck havoc (pun intended) in New Mutants?
Since Ayala did a good job with Farouk, maybe they'll find a way to heal Maddie too. She deserves it after the unfair character assassination she's gone through so Scott could be guilt-free when sleeping with Jean.

[tinygaylaura]

It would be nice if she got a shot at redemption

[silverhammerman]

Surely there must be a middle ground between conscious, immobile, unending torture and doing nothing. It's just that seemingly no one on Krakoa has sat down for more than five minutes to think about how to constitute a functional society and government beyond purchasing a conference table, colonizing planets, and torturing people.

There's rehabilitation, which would be made significantly easier on an island full of telepaths and others whose powers have therapeutic uses, including two literally in the room handing down the sentence.
There's extradition to stand trial in American, not that the US judicial system is good (though compared to condemnation to eternal torture by a bunch of oligarchs, even American prison looks relatively nice). Orphan-Maker killed Americans in America though, and I'm not sure what legal argument could be made to say Krakoa should be the one to try him.
Hell, there's even the informal exile given to Nature Girl and Curse, whose crimes were arguably worse than those of an emotionally damaged man-child who had just seen his mother figure killed.

But I guess at this point I'm just writing fan fic. I think the point of the story is that it's unjust, not necessarily that the Council's hands are tied.

[dan_ingram]

Personally, I would wonder why the US would have any reason at all to believe that Orphan Maker was punished at all.

I mean, there are no foreign observers, not even a public trial

[donnblake]

Fully onboard the rehabilitation train,. I see Peter very much as a victim in all of this- the Quiet Council has repeatedly failed him here.

[shakalooloo]

I'm sorry, but those lips make it impossible for me to read the story.

[remial]

on the plus side, Graycrow punched Scott in the face.